Hey everyone,
Natasha Ace and I began our journey as consultants working within Apollo little over 8 months ago. Everyday we feel like students who ask each other, where do we want to see the direction of our business go? Honestly, we still don’t have a straightforward answer.
In such a short space of time our firm, Apollo Consulting Services, has learnt more from our clients than taught; I will be the first to admit that.
Similarly, the world of mental health continually evolves and the need to reshape and adjust as practitioners is always something that requires adaptation.
We do see our clients (the practitioner) needing to change their primary focus to achieve sustainable growth and this creates a feeling like you’re on a never ending merry-go round. (recruitment-referrals-processes-clinical governance-self care-repeat).
This has lead us to continually challenge each other as students and consultants to reshape our business. We try to challenge those we speak to about continuing the development needed to stay in the forefront of our industry and open oneself to any opportunities that arise.
This student-like approach has taught us to listen more than talk, and to discuss more than instruct. This process alone teaches us the most valuable asset we document, knowledge. Real industry knowledge.
Our industry is growing by the minute and this has also changed the way we express and communicate sensitive information. Language matters – you won’t hear using the words –‘KPI, retention, cancellation policy’ just to name a few.
Personally, I have been in touch with many practice owners as well as psychologists over the past 6 years, even more so over the last 8 months. All are situated somewhere in the journey of change and evolvement. The cycle begins with the practitioner having an idea of change that they’ve been thinking about for the last decade which they haven't had either the time or the formula to roll the out the concept.
We believe all learnings and knowledge through our journey should be shared with everyone and this is why we have created a platform in which we want to share with you.
It’s called the Australian Mental Health Alliance. Within this platform we’ve created an interface in which practice owners can obtain information around all facets of best practice within private practice. Think Wikipedia for private practices. Helping to drive the needed change in our industry.
The first tool we would like to publish is available, it’s called the private practice stress test.
The stress test is simple, it’s a multiple choice - yes/no, 1-5 low/high, which you fill out, submit and you're provided with a score and summary.
The tool has been created to help better understand how your practice is placed against your peers, to obtain the ‘best practice’ label as well as make you question what you truly know about what you’ve built within your business and where you may have “stressors”.
Stay curious as we aren’t directly asking you to answer anything specific, but the questions will provoke you to think laterally.
What we ask of you is simple, complete and register. What does this actually mean for you? Real usable information that provides you with the how to. Knowledge you can implement. If you choose ready made templates and furthermore, well, we are not even sure ourselves :)
